


The Name of the Stars and the Moons

by keilexandra



Category: The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keilexandra/pseuds/keilexandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After losing and surviving twice, Zabira of Cartada vowed never again to love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Name of the Stars and the Moons

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first attempt at imitating the wonder of Guy Gavriel Kay; like a mosaicist, I can only aspire to be ever closer to truth. Many thanks to my beta, Kate Nepveu, for suggesting Zabira, songbirds, and orchids. I can't imagine this tale without your guidance.
> 
> Written for MagnoliaMama

 

 

_What shall be the name of their beauty / If it be not her name?_

She had the misfortune, it seemed, to survive. To survive a king's assassination and the succession of his patricidal son. To survive a loyal counsellor's last sacrifice to ensure his--another--king's reign.

She had learned from the first time by diligently avoiding King Badir of Ragosa, in that autumn when she fled over the mountains. But she needed political protection, for herself and for her sons; so gladly she had accepted Mazur ben Avren's offer of companionship.

Only to lose him to war--holy war this time, but no different from the petty-wars of Al-Rassan--just as she had lost Almalik, her Lion, her first love. And Mazur, her second love.

The irony was patently obvious. And after the autumn dusk had fallen to true night, Zabira, beloved of the powerful, vowed under the holy stars of Ashar never again to love.

  


_Winter was a time for dreaming, among other things._

It is autumn again, a much earlier autumn. She is still a child, sent by her mother to draw water from the public fountain. An important merchant was to dine at their house; her mother wanted to try a new recipe for iced green tea. She normally veils in public but had not wanted to bother pinning it in place when the fountain was only a short walk and shorter run away, and when it was deepening twilight so the short-sighted wadjis would not glimpse her face. 

Her hair is uncovered when two riders dressed in hunting garb, mounted on fine horses, canter down either side of the fountain. She lifts her head and her rim-full bucket of cold water at the sound of the horses halting suddenly. She fears that they will seek a wadji's favor by reporting her, or worse, violating her as a brazen woman deserves. The lead rider, a heavyset man next to his slender companion, swings down from his horse. He holds the reins casually in one large, muscled hand. She remembers his hands the best.

"Your beauty astounds me, lady."

The words, spoken bluntly with the ring of surprised truth, shock her. She has never been told such a thing, by man or woman, certainly never by a noble stranger. For he is noble, that much she can see: the leather of his boots is embossed with an indistinguishable crest, and the shirt under his woolen cloak glimmers of silk. 

He seems sincere, but she decides to be safe and murmur, her gaze cast respectfully downwards, "If my appearance displeases you, my lord, I beg pardon."

A laugh, filled with idle amusement, rings out into the last of the autumn light. It comes from the other man, the slim one who still sits upon his horse. It is not an unkind laugh, but neither is it compassionate--he laughs with carelessness, with confidence.

And he says in a poet's voice, "She even refuses your compliment, 'Malik. Modesty and beauty together is the rarest combination."

She looks up with no hint of redness despite inner embarrassment. "My lords. I thank you. May I take leave now? My mother awaits this water at home, for tea."

The first man waves his free hand in a dismissive motion and says, "Then I must send your mother Al-Rassan's finest tea in apology. You will accompany me tonight." It is a command, not a question. His dark eyes gleam with unknown but frightening thoughts. Still, though she walks unveiled in public, this is Cartada and she retains certain secular rights. Surely among them must be the right to walk away from strangers.

"I beg pardon, my lord, but I cannot possibly accede to such a request. Please inquire of my mother if you wish to court me."

To her unceasing surprise, he chuckles. Also filled with amusement, though the tone is like a shining blade, beautiful and deadly. He says, "You do not yet understand, but you will. Come."

She turns to leave without bothering to make reply to someone clearly mad or ignorant of the most basic civilized courtesies. He catches her dark hair, flying unbound in the breeze, with a hand that closes brusquely around a prize. Another unfathomable rudeness that she can no longer tolerate. She grits her teeth against the pain of hair pulling away from scalp and spins around and closer, very close to the trespasser. Even some of the more liberal wadjis might support her now. In a single quick motion, she splashes her bucket of icy water directly into his face.

It works, though her heart thrums irregularly at her own audacity. The man's silk shirt is streaked and partly ruined, his eyes are blinking in half-blindness. She holds tightly to the bucket and prepares to run when the other man laughs aloud again, much louder this time. His laugh mesmerizes her, and she stays to hear him declare, still smiling with mirth, "Ah, 'Malik, she thinks you a common thug. Has not our illusion run its course? Enlighten her, she who could wear the stars in her hair."

The man with large hands glares at his friend through sodden hair, but the gaze, she thinks, has no venom. He turns to her then, and she should run, escape, but she stays. He says to her, "Your name, my lady?"

The honorific, which he has thenceforth ommitted, somehow compels her to reply truthfully. Or perhaps she just knows, in her gut, that she should not lie to this man. "Zabira. I am Zabira of Cartada."

He smiles, not unkindly, at her. The smile softens his hard face and cold eyes. But it is the slender man, his companion, who speaks. "Zabira, you stand before Almalik, first of his name, sovereign king of glorious Cartada."

Many things are now explained. She sinks quickly to the ground in crude obeisance and is raised up by Almalik himself, who tucks an orchid--pulled from nowhere, perhaps Ammar's sleeve--into her hair with a tender, possessive caress.

The rest of the story plays out as one might expect. But what she does not expect, herself, is to love the complex and ruthless man who will take her from the Gate of the Fountain one autumn twilight into his arms and into the court of the world. After all, she is only seventeen years old.

  


_"I do hope he recognized me," said ibn Khairan in a musing tone. "I think he did."_

An audience in the high-vaulted chamber. One of many. She sits upon delicately embroidered, colourful cushions beside the dais where the king is served oranges and delivers edicts to his subjects. One, the aged ka'id of all the Cartadan armies, kneels before Almalik with nervousness unbefitting his stature and reputation. She might have sympathized with him, fifteen years ago; but today, though she plucks leisurely upon her lute, she shares the king's anger regarding the obstinant whereabouts of Ammar ibn Khairan. She knows Ammar well, as well as she knows the king. But she does not love this poet-diplomat-soldier who laughed at her beside a fountain and never ceased to be amused. Respect, yes; love she reserves for he who has sought and earned it. Almalik took his good time earning, but he has paid his debt and more.

The king berates his ka'id further; she is bored at first but soon pays attention, and she observes with a small smile when the ka'id declares in a whisper--such a paradoxical tone common when addressing the Lion of Al-Rassan--"Ammar ibn Khairan has disappeared...off the face of the earth."

There is a silence.

"What a dreadfully tired phrase," says the Lion.

In spite of herself, she attends ever less to her lute and ever more to the politics of the court. She has borne two sons by Almalik, both birthed by an excellent physician she was sorry to lose--the physician who had saved two lives and nearly lost his own. She is grateful to have two sons to send away to safety, two sons to guard like a lioness over her cubs.

The questioning continues. Almalik allows the ka'id thirty days to find ibn Khairan. It is a generous ruling.

What comes next: a minor and largely useless poet, Serafi, is to recite the infamous lines sent by ibn Khairan. She does not bother to look at him, and so she sees the king in his first spasms. She knows in two--or is it five, or ten?--heartbeats that he is dead. Still she rises, involuntarily, nearly dropping her lute in haste. A step, then stillness and silence. Almalik's mouth is open, his last words never released from their fatal prison.

She stands before him, stiller than the body that twitches in death. The buttons of his shirt are studded with sapphires. The top button, the one lying in the hollow of the neck--no longer Almalik's, who has gone to Ashar's Paradise--outlines a round-petaled, long-stamened flower. The flower quite resembles, if one were to compare, the deep blue orchid adorning her hair.

Beside her, Ammar ibn Khairan, the man who slew the last khalif, sheds his guise as the silent orange-bearer slave. The man who slew the king of Cartada, the Lion of Al-Rassan, her first love.

  


_And so did Ser Rodrigo Belmonte, the Captain of Valledo, and the lord Ammar ibn Khairan of Aljais stand in the Courtyard of the Streams of Ragosa on a bright morning in autumn and look upon each other for the first time._

She is more grateful than she will admit to the elegant courtier from Aljais. Ammar, who loved Almalik as much as she did--she knows this for sure now, the knowledge steadies her through the starlight nights--and who killed him. 

But in this moment, as she kneels in formal dress and jewel before King Badir of Ragosa, she feels a twinge of envy for her stalwart steward. She is only an exotic orchid struggling to survive outside its usual environment; Ammar steals away every discerning eye the moment his pearl earring gleamed in the sunlight.

Thus the dance begins anew. King Badir greets her courteously, first, though she senses his distracted gaze. Fair enough.

She rises in one slow, smooth movement and meets his dark eyes, opposite to Ammar's blinding blue. She says in a clear and melodious voice, her court voice, "I have come to tell a tale of murder. A son's murder of his father, and the consequences of that." She pauses, invokes Ashar in her continued explanation, and ends with a simple, provacative question: "Shall such a man reign in Cartada?"

There, she plays the first card. How the game will progress is yet to be seen. She offers, fluently, a Lion's throne to Badir of Ragosa. This is known.

Then his chancellor speaks. Mazur ben Avren, robed in the Kindath blue and white, famed and feared for his counsel. "I would know, if I might, is this also the thought and desire of the steward you bring with you?"

She expects the question and replies, "He is not my steward. I will not dare presume to speak for Ammar ibn Khairan, my lord chancellor, my lord king."

Ammar responds with his characteristic turns of phrase. Treason, doubly constrained. She is nervous, waiting for the next card, but she finds a small, ironic amusement in the situation. Ibn Khairan, the king, and the chancellor argue at length in the manner suited to a court, that is, in barbed elegance. Finally a soldier, a captain with an eagle-marked helmet, speaks up. "Make him an offer."

Thus does Ammar ibn Khairan become a Ragosan mercenary. This, too, amuses her. She knows by now that her suit has been dismissed, that Cartada will remain lost for a time. She stands still, listening to the irregular whirling waters of the artificial stream, listening to ben Avren the chancellor struggle against ibn Khairan the diplomat; both are poets.

She is listening when another of Badir's mercenaries steps forward and challenges Ammar and the soldier--Belmonte, the famed Captain Rodrigo Belmonte of Valledo--to duel each other. Before she has a chance to consider the idea, she hears three voices eerily in exact harmony: " _I think not._ "

This is what she will remember of her first meeting with Mazur ben Avren. Not his face, nor his voice, nor his words (for these are not truly his words); she will remember the trio, echoing in unison, three men of whom only one--the most ironic of the three--will live.

She tries not to think about such memories.

  


_It was a generous, thoughtful gift, from a man who had never been less than generous or thoughtful with her._

She dines often with Mazur, and stays the night. He is always courteous. For Carnival tomorrow night, he has gifted her a gorgeous mask with showy avian plumage. Tucked in where her ear would be, behind the mask, is an orchid fashioned from deep indigo feathers.

"You are the sweet songbird by the watering-place," says Mazur, smiling.

She bows her head to accept the compliment, then raises it, meeting his eyes, and offers, "The songbird will make her nest by the water."

"And may she guard her young well," says Mazur. He rises and walks slowly around the marble-topped table to stand behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders and massaging them gently. His hands are not large, nor callused or scarred, but their strength nevertheless reminds her of another's hands.

"I am grateful for my sons' lives," she whispers. "My thanks, a thousand times over."

"It is not me you should thank," responds Mazur gravely. "I have done but little."

She shakes her head, unbound hair falling over her shoulders and caressing Mazur's hands. "You have done everything. Where would they be now, if you had not accepted their care the summer after the Day of the Moat?"

Mazur does not answer. She finds herself happy at this, happy that he will not protest further. He is too modest.

Impulsively, she turns around, half-rising. She laces her hands into his greying hair, presses her lips against his. She has satisfied him innumerable times, but never has she kissed him first.

Mazur's eyes express his surprise, but he deepens the kiss with--she believes--genuine emotion. In a sudden epiphany, as she clings to Mazur and he carries her tenderly to the silken bed, she knows why she kissed him.

For she has seen his hands, has thought of Almalik, her first love, and her heart does not break. For his uncanny wisdom and foresight, for the poignant elegance of poetry from a poet content to be unknown, for offering her sons a safe haven--for revitalizing a wilted orchid and freeing a songbird from its gilt-jeweled cage--for this, she loves him.

  


_One sun for the god. Two moons for his beloved sisters. Uncountable stars to shine in the night. Oh, man and woman, born to a dark path, only look up and the lights shall guide you home._

He left in the early morning, as the sun rose to outshine both blue and white moon. It was a cloudless but chilly day in late autumn. On this day, Mazur ben Avren, Prince of the Kindath and chancellor to the Asharite king of Ragosa, had walked out of his city into the Ruendan camp. It was said that Queen Fruela, surprised but joyous at the chancellor's death wish, had ordered a terrible desecration.

And she slept through it all, in ignorance. She had dreamed of him, even, worrying over his health as he worried over the fate of besieged Ragosa through the long winter ahead. She lay on the silken bed stained with love, next to a blue orchid that flourishs in its polished wooden pot. Mazur had not joined her the night before, but such insomnia had become routine.

She will never forgive herself. There is nothing she could have done, says the king, offering consolation even as he deals with his own grief. They don sombre grey now, both of them, always.

The color, the traditional Asharite color of mourning, reminds her of his hair. It had been greying, thinning slowly despite his vehement protests to the contrary. She had told him it was silly to be in denial, and silly to care. He had not responded, save for their exceptionally passionate meeting that night.

So she wears blue and white too, in small subtleties. Today she has pinned her grey cloak with a sapphire-and-diamond brooch. It is probably blasphemy to honor a Kindath this way, especially when Yazir, the Sword of the Muwardi, is a honored guest of King Badir and residing in the palace with his soldiers. But she has ceased to care about politics, even as a glittering bystander like in her youth.

When a songbird nests by the water, beware of a new lion.

  


_Let only sorrow speak tonight. / Let sorrow name the moons._

Many autumns ago, a vow was sworn beneath the holy stars of Ashar at the cold dusk of a cold, cloudless day. Zabira of Cartada was a woman no longer young (though still beautiful, the poets assured her), nor a woman inclined to renege on her sacred word. Ashar, cruel as he was for all that he took from her, still ruled in Al-Rassan.

Badir had promised that her sons would be protected with all his will, on a single condition: that she remain alive by all her own will. Another vow, reluctant at the time but now one she owed Badir as a debt.

So she paid the debt, a score of years later, with the swearing of a marriage vow and the breaking of another. Though really she broke the vow nearly as long ago, the day she accepted from the king of Ragosa a brilliant flower-shaped brooch of sapphires and diamond. A blue orchid.

END

 


End file.
